34 [August 



tatives of the family from the more northern parts of the North Ameri- 

 can Continent where the genera allied to the Bombycidae are more 

 largely prevalent. As we progress towards the tropics, the Sphingidse, 

 ^geriidx, Zygaenidse and Nbctuidx, afford the preponderant lepidop- 

 terous expression, while the extensive family of Bombycidas loses its 

 character, developed under a colder climate, and becomes a more unim- 

 portant feature in the entomological fauna of the Torrid Zones. 



I have consulted in the preparation of this notice, in addition to the 

 illustrative works of the earlier authors, whose indifferent figures serve 

 but too frequently to disguise specific names, the following classifica- 

 tory works, which I now briefly refer to. 



In 1816 Hubner published his " Verzeichniss,"* a work which has 

 received most ungenerous and defective criticism, j" since, for the age 

 in which he wrote, Hubner was greatly advanced in his conception of 

 generic values, | and his critics have occupied themselves but too fre- 

 quently in creating generic synonyms at his expense, and in some in- 

 tances with less felicity of limitation. 



Hubner used the external accessories of a genus, without giving the 

 structural form itself, to limit his generic separations. He was satisfied 

 to record the superficial dissonance of distinctive structural form, with- 

 out ascertaining the fundamental divergence that caused that form to 

 vary in its entiety of physical expression. Coloration was not received 

 by him clearly as an idea independent of the Pattern of Ornamenta- 

 tion ; it is this latter which more distinctly goes hand in hand with 

 generic structure in Zoology; the first is an independent specific value, 

 or, in an extended sense, a family characteristic. 



Less fortunate, perhaps, than in the Bombycidae, Hubner has arranged 

 much discordant material under his genera in the present family, and 

 many of his generic terms are consequently useless. This has probably 

 arisen from his being autoptically unacquainted with very many of the 

 species he has endeavored to arrange systematically, while the figures 

 he was in consequence obliged to rely on, frequently allowed from their 



* Verzeichniss bekannter Schraetterlinge, verfasst von Jacob Hubner, Augs- 

 burg, 1816. 



t For instance: "Jai du multiplier ces examples, parce que, je le repete, 

 on paraitvouloir aujourd'hui eriger le Verzeichniss en autorite, et j'avais besoin 

 d'indequer pourquoi je le considere, avec men colaborateur, comme une ceuvre 

 nonavenue, et pourquoi, je ne me suis point cru oblige plus que liu, d'employer 

 les noms generiques, souvent rudes ou burlesques, de cet ouvrage mort ne." 

 Guenee Noct. 1, p. Ixxiv. 



X Packard, Notes on the Family Zygsenidse. Proc. Essex Ins. (1864.) 



